Dutch government wants penalties for P2P downloads

The Dutch government has unveiled a new copyright plan that would make …

The Netherlands currently allows private users to download copyrighted songs and movies without penalty, so long as they are for personal use; uploading, however, counts as "distribution" and comes with penalties. This approach is unusual in Europe, and today the Dutch government announced plans to change course. Downloading unauthorized music and movies would become illegal under the new plan, but in return, citizens get some new benefits: no more levies on MP3 players and blank CDs, a new "fair use" right," and a pledge that the government won't pursue "criminalization" of end users.

The government plan was announced by Fred Teeven, the Justice and Security state secretary. Teeven noted that "downloading has long been illegal for games and other software, and this will now also apply to movies and music."

But unlike in France, the government has no interest in going after private citizens. "Consumers need not fear criminalization," Teeven added. "There is no so-called 'three-strikes' law."

Instead, the government wants to push the change as a way of making it simpler to block foreign websites. Dealing with sites inside the Netherlands, such as the huge torrent site Mininova, can be dealt with under existing Dutch law, but the country wants to block sites like The Pirate Bay that exist just outside its borders. The change on downloading will make it much easier to block sites that claim they only facilitate downloads but not uploads, though this is called a "last resort" by Teeven.

Dutch antipiracy organization BREIN applauded the move. "BREIN is a supporter of the ban on illegal downloading of music, movies, and e-books," it said in a statement. "BREIN fought sites that facilitate illegal uploading of this material, and it can now more easily combat sites that facilitate illegal downloading."

Teeven's plan would also eliminate the extra fees for personal copying built into "blank media." "Technology has overtaken the private copying regime," said the government's announcement. "There is therefore no room for the private copying levies. New levies on devices such as MP3 players, laptops, DVD recorders, and USB sticks are undesirable. The same applies to a tax on Internet subscriptions."

The Dutch will also get a "fair use" exception to copyright in order to encourage noncommercial reuse. (Much Dutch government material is already Creative Commons licensed.) Teeven also wants to push for broader-based licensing of content, making it easy for a company like Apple to open a single iTunes store that Dutch citizens can access, rather than the current patchwork under which separate rights are required in each country. Finally, he wants to crack down a bit on collecting societies, forcing them to better account for where their money goes and allowing artists to more easily file challenges.

The Euro-centric Torrentfreak site was muted in its response to the proposed changes, though it did note one positive implication: the Netherlands won't be seeing widespread private lawsuits against individuals. "Aside from toughening the law, the new plans also include ‘protections’ for the privacy of file-sharers," said the site. "One of the key points is that the rights holders can only claim the personal details of an alleged infringer if that person shared copyrighted material on a massive scale. This would prevent the pay-up-or-else settlement schemes that are currently ongoing in the United States."

God I am glad the US does not do this "tax" on blank media to cover piracy losses. It just has to be the dumbest thing ever.

Ranks up there with MD wanting to increase the alcohol tax by %50 to fund programs for the disabled. If you want to raise money. Tax everyone. Not just those that like to drink.

I was recently thinking how nice it would be if the US were to adopt that kind of system in tandem with legalizing private personal use filesharing.

I'd be happy to pay twice as much for blank CDs, thumb dives, and iPods if it meant I could legally download music and movies to fill them with for free, and that the artists would get supported from a fund built around the charges on the devices/media.

God I am glad the US does not do this "tax" on blank media to cover piracy losses. It just has to be the dumbest thing ever.

Ranks up there with MD wanting to increase the alcohol tax by %50 to fund programs for the disabled. If you want to raise money. Tax everyone. Not just those that like to drink.

They did this a long time ago and though of it as free money... everyone is buying CDs, net connections were too slow, most people use the CDs for other purposes than music so it was basically: free money.

It later came back to bite them on the ass onvr P2P really took off, the net got faster and everyone and their dog started downloading.

chronomitch wrote:

Why Thursday? I didn't get the memo.

Only one person did... Make a note for Wed/Thu - it's going to be fun!

> I'd be happy to pay twice as much for blank CDs, thumb dives, and iPods$550 for an iPod touch???!

> and that the artists would get supported from a fund built around the charges on the devices/media. The artists never get supported anyway, its the companies that leech off the artistic talent.

And from what I gather, things won't change too much, blocking at the DNS level won't really stop anyone (they also emphasize that blocking is a last resort and won't often be used).Also, this is about a law, so there still has to be a lawsuit and a verdict before anything can actually happen (which would probably take years).

Another good thing is that they really seem to make a point of promoting legal ways, which might manifest itself in some nice things (probably not).

Now let's go register 'tpbproxy.nl' and host it in Sweden

Edit: Ah, "supporting the artists", sure... (looks at record company revenues)

Edit 2: Ah, just heard Bits of Freedom and the "Consumentenbond" (Consumer Union) weren't welcome at the press conference. There's something queer about that.I have a feeling we're not getting the complete picture.

God I am glad the US does not do this "tax" on blank media to cover piracy losses. It just has to be the dumbest thing ever.

Ranks up there with MD wanting to increase the alcohol tax by %50 to fund programs for the disabled. If you want to raise money. Tax everyone. Not just those that like to drink.

I was recently thinking how nice it would be if the US were to adopt that kind of system in tandem with legalizing private personal use filesharing.

I'd be happy to pay twice as much for blank CDs, thumb dives, and iPods if it meant I could legally download music and movies to fill them with for free, and that the artists would get supported from a fund built around the charges on the devices/media.

Yes, *you* would be happy with that deal. Manufacturers, importers and users of digital storage media (that store something besides music and movies) would not. Most importantly: most artist mightn't. There's such fund in my country, and (surprise, surprise) it's famous for giving everyone a dime only, but friends and fellas of the fund's board members.*I* want to decide what artists I support. Such a board would never have the same taste for music and movies as I have, and would thus encourage funding of all the wrong bands and studios.In my country, Iceland, inviduals may create verbatim copies of copyrighted works other than buildings and DRM'd software (thanks alot [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area"]EEA[/url]). Fair enough. But that funds artists indirectly only; through increased famousity.

Do any of these plans which block websites do anything other than merely removing/changing DNS records in that country's ISP DNS servers? What is stopping anyone from using another DNS provider?

They could potentially do an Egypt and have all the routers connecting to the backbones blackhole the IPs themselves.

Yea, except the entire country would have to be cut off like Egypt in order to keep people from by passing those nullroutes via tunneling to outside entities. Governments don't seem to understand that the Internet breaks all boarders, once you have connectivity you have essentially given up your control on import/export of any digital goods/services.

Do any of these plans which block websites do anything other than merely removing/changing DNS records in that country's ISP DNS servers? What is stopping anyone from using another DNS provider?

They could potentially do an Egypt and have all the routers connecting to the backbones blackhole the IPs themselves.

Yea, except the entire country would have to be cut off like Egypt in order to keep people from by passing those nullroutes via tunneling to outside entities. Governments don't seem to understand that the Internet breaks all boarders, once you have connectivity you have essentially given up your control on import/export of any digital goods/services.

I am sure Cisco, IBM, and a plethora of US companies are assiting the governments around the world and implemeting plans to take care of those pesky law breakers that insist on using the internet without approval.

"Unusual?The Netherlands currently allows private users to download copyrighted songs and movies without penalty, so long as they are for personal use; uploading, however, counts as "distribution" and comes with penalties. This approach is unusual in Europe,"

Unusual? Hungary is the same. We pay extra for every DVD, HDD, MP3 player & such bought, but it is OK to download for personal use. Same for upload rules: it is illegal.

I'd be happy to pay twice as much for blank CDs, thumb dives, and iPods if it meant I could legally download music and movies to fill them with for free, and that the artists would get supported from a fund built around the charges on the devices/media.

Do any of these plans which block websites do anything other than merely removing/changing DNS records in that country's ISP DNS servers? What is stopping anyone from using another DNS provider?

This will make it inconvenient enough for most people to make a significant reduction.Your average downloader probably doesn't know how to pick an alternative DNS server.

BTW: very misleading title, because the article also states clearly that the government doesn't seek to criminalize individual downloaders.The act will be "unlawful" (but not a criminal act and not a misdemeanour), meaning that it will not be prosecuted. However, it will be possible to go after websites that "encourage unlawful acts", like p2p trackers and Usenet/NZB sites. Or block them if outside Dutch jurisdiction.The catch may be that rights holders may start civil cases against downloaders. Currently this is not possible because downloading is not unlawful and implicitly permitted by the levy.

At least not till new politicians are elected at which point this will be changed and the RIAAs next step in their master plan will be enacted. This is the beauty of incrimentalism. If you want to destroy the rights and liberties of the poeple you must do so in small steps that individually sound reasonable and over time so as to not alert the serfs to what the end game is.

Now they just need to define "Massive scale" - In typical BREIN style they will probably do this for anyone that's been caught downloading more than one file.

If massive scale is defined as something like uploading 10G + (100 x size of upload) per upload with a penalty of no more than retail value of item _up to a maximum of $50_ (else someone could just offer their product for $1000000 and someone just downloading it for curiosity, for example, is totally screwed) for each item originally accused of downloading which is shown to actually exist on the defendant's hard drive in the exact form of the download. And, settlement letters illegal ... .

Let us pray that this guy has no skeletons in his closet they can use to blackmail him for you can bet they will do all they can to compromise this guy if they can;t buy him off like the rest of the politcians in the District of Criminals.

a. the industry which sells electronics goods, media and net connections the purpose of which is to copy content from one place or format to another, and b. the industry which is concerned with obtaining fees for creating and distributing the content people want to copy

isn't about to end any time soon. But it isn't in the public interest for this war to be continued either. So how to end it ?

We are best starting by recognising that there is no fundamental or natural right for those engaged in industry b. to be able to control how other people use their information appliances and media. Attempts to create copyright and related laws attempting to have this effect are both recent and technically obsolete, having had practical application only during the brief historical period when those with the technical means to copy on an industrial scale were both very few and highly visible. Copyright as it currently stands is in a terminal state of decline and needs shooting to put this suffering beast out of its misery.

But it is in the interests of one industry whose sales are helped by the activities of another to ensure these unintentional sales representatives get paid a fair commission for their services. As such I'm in favour of having such a cut based upon a percentage of the value of the equipment, media and services being sold. This honest sales commission can only be collected as a kind of tax, because paying it individually gives no competitive advantage to individual players within industry a. And those who claim to distribute it to artists need to be made to keep better accounts in return, and need their own overheads to be limited, so that the highest possible proportion of this levy goes in the fairest possible way to the artists whose content helps to sell the products of industry a. Probably better to keep some of the money back for state cultural and arts funding until the arts and content communities have agreed independent sampling and popularity measuring mechanisms amongst themselves which enable the money to be paid out to artists more directly.

The new legal distinction requires recognising as legitimate the non-commercial use and distribution of content. Those benefiting from commercial sale of the products and services which make this possible, the sales of which are expanded because of the available content being copied and distributed, will have to pay this levy in exchange for the additional business they are benefiting from commercially becoming fully legitimised.

Art production overseen by state committee is bullshit. Many countries have this for films, and it sucks.

A flat tax on technologies that currently (and parasitically) reap all the benefits from the illegal dissemination of media while giving nothing in return is also, regrettably, bullshit since such a thing is impossible to oversee and doesn't easily (and fairly) scale for content creators as there is no reliable mechanism to track the relative popularity of all media released through the myriad of available channels, domestic and foreign, overt and obtuse. Under such a system, Steven Spielberg and...Nina Paley would probably bring home the same meager paycheck which would be just as much of an injustice as Google bringing home the same meager paycheck as...Altavista.

How will they tell the difference between legal and illegal p2p files? Infiltration? Since that is most certainly illegal cases like this. Baiting? (also illegal) or would they go home to people with a warrant to all people using p2p and check for illegal files? (this one is legal in Holland if they have a warrant) but i do not think a warrant would be issued for a crime like that.